Of Lost People and Lands of Fragments

By

William Meyers

September 24, 2011

History in Israel is palpable; it takes an act of will to avoid it. And history is the point of Shai Kremer's chromogenic landscapes of his native land: Sometimes in broad panoramas and sometimes in detailed close-ups, he captures layers of history in counterpoint with one another. "Tel Nitzana" (2007) is a shot of a wide swath of the Negev, the desert in Israel's south. Taken from an elevation, the picture shows sand stretching to a distant horizon as, presumably, it has throughout the present geological age. But in the foreground are ruins left by successive civilizations: Nabataean, Hellenistic, Roman,...